Reid Haithcock photo

Crime in Stereo: Stuck in-between two worlds.

Crime in Stereo

With Brand New and Glassjaw. 7:30 p.m., Nov. 25. Oakdale Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford. $16.50. 203-265-1501, oakdale.com.

At hardcore shows, it's customary for audience members to rise up, reach out and temporarily seize the singer's duties by edging their mouths towards the mic. Even with miniscule numbers, enough energy can turn any crowd into a scramble of flesh. Because of this, certain hardcore vocalists spend the majority of their performances angled toward the listeners, holding a rabid dog pile at bay by allowing strangers to lend their voices instead of concentrating on their own singing.

Kristian Hallbert only partially subscribes to this convention. As his band Crime in Stereo blasts barbed melodies and tangled riffs, the nimble front man huffs, hops and shakes like he's aware of his duties but he has a mind wandering elsewhere. His eyes intermittently flicker as if he's experiencing some hallucinatory trek. His shouts, meanwhile, contain an effective weight but aren't as violently anxious as typical hardcore singers.

Nonetheless, Crime fans amass themselves in a mound and sail upwards toward him, eager to contribute their own voices to the mess. Hallbert grants his mandatory mic alms, giving a few guests a verse or two, but largely holds on tight to the mic, lost in a daze and spilling imagery. His miserliness with the vocals is not a sign of self-indulgence or arrogance; instead, it's evidence of Crime's dedication to their own self-expression. They know they are most fit to deliver their art, even when a crowd is zealously clawing at their instruments.

Their hardcore operates according to their definitions.

Since racing out of Long Island in the early aughts, each Crime in Stereo release has demonstrated an exponential increase in ambition. On 2004's Explosives and the Will to Use Them, they produced wiry but docile hardcore punk; three years later, Is Dead bloomed with a spirit too speculative and experimental for the normal borders of hardcore but no other genre really fits it. Their sound has plummeted into static, rummaged through ambiance and cranked up the distortion, but they always maintain a brazen confidence and sharp sense of structure. Song subjects vary widely, too, touching on fashion ("Warning: Perfect Sideburns Do Not Make You Dangerous"), an overabundance of technology ("Slow Math") and the last wishes of a suicide bomber ("Takbir").

More striking than their growth is how they've managed to plot links between ideas, even as their aesthetic changes. Consider this thread: "For Exes," a track from their 2006 album Troubled Stateside discusses a burgeoning potential romance. Then, "Four X's" from the 2008 B-sides collection Selective Wreckage reevaluates the original track using the real-life aftermath. (Guitarist/lyricist Alex Dunne later revealed that he wrote "For Exes" about one girl while in a relationship with another.) Wedged between the two is Is Dead opener "XXXX (The First Thousand Years of Solitude)," an inclusion that means nothing until you notice the title's sequence (four X's), throwing another portion into the puzzle. This level of detail is too good to be kismet. Is it all intentionally woven together?

"It most certainly is," responds Hallbert. "Those things make the dynamic of the band that much cooler."

The vocalist credits Dunne as "the mad scientist," noting that without stories behind those words, they wouldn't be worth putting out there.

"The most important part to a band is lyrics," says Hallbert. "If you're just singing to sing, your voice is wasted. If you have a message or emotion portrayed, it sticks to people so much more."

In brass-tacks terms, few current hardcore bands are composing songs with this sort of artistic aplomb. This trait separates Crime from their brethren, as Hallbert relates in an amusing analogy.

"We're like the kid last picked for dodge ball: We are melodic with a well-rounded lyrical package but we carry ourselves like a hardcore band. We're stuck in-between two worlds, which I love."

Hardcore or otherwise, any form of resonance with the listener is what makes the group's work matter.

"We don't write our music to write music, it's just seeping out of us," says the vocalist. "Whatever you take away from that is in itself beautiful."